DA Chief Dared to Face Probe 
Over Pesticide Poisoning

After 15 years of tragedy - including 17 deaths according to a peasant's testimony - residents of a peasant village in Digos, Davao del Sur in southern Philippines are ready to break their silence when their complaints of pesticide poisoning will be up for congressional investigation. The subject of the investigation: Luis “Cito” Lorenzo, Jr., secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA), whose family owns the Lapanday banana plantation which is accused of the pesticide poisoning.

By Gerry Albert Corpuz 
Bulatlat.com

DIGOS CITY, Davao del Sur - A peasant leader has asked Agriculture Secretary Luis “Cito” Lorenzo, Jr. to resign and face investigation by Congress over persistent reports of pesticide poisoning in Kamukhaan Village. Kamukhaan in this town is a peasant community located in the 613-hectare banana plantation of Lapanday Development Corporation (Ladeco), which is owned by the Lorenzo family. At least 17 residents, including children, have died and scores taken ill as a result of pesticide poisoning, a Kamukhaan woman peasant told a recent fact-finding mission.

Danilo Ramos, secretary general of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP – Peasant Movement in the Philippines), accused Lorenzo of using his Cabinet position “to support his family's stake in Ladeco and thwart any opposition against the alleged use of poisonous chemicals in the operations of the Lorenzo-owned banana plantation.”

"The people's livelihood, health and environment have been sacrificed at the altar of the Lorenzo family’s and Ladeco's endless fetish for super profits," Ramos said.

Ramos’s challenge to Lorenzo came up over the weekend following the results of a fact-finding mission organized organized by KMP in cooperation with Agham, a group of concerned scientists and technologists, the Center for Environmental Concerns (CEC) and Cause-Davao del Sur last Feb. 24-27.

Members of the fact-finding mission will submit their report to the Senate committee on agriculture and its counterpart at the House alongside with its request for both houses to conduct an immediate inquiry on the Kamukhaan village tragedy.

The fact-finding mission was also joined by American Jack Weinberg, president of the Environmental Health Fund Global Chemical Safety Program; Kaveri Dutt from India; anti-toxic activist Dr. Romeo Quijano; and representatives from the National Poison Control Center, St. Scholastica's College, UP College of Social Work and Community Development-Research and Documentation Department and the Peasant Education and Studies Center (PESC).

Initial findings

Initial findings revealed that a significant number of residents examined by the medical team in Kamukhaan Village were suffering from respiratory and gastro-intestinal illnesses.

One resident, Nanette Rodriguez, 37, said that in 1988, serious illnesses began to appear. “At one time, children got sick and 17 died. One mother, in one day, two of her children died, then, also the neighbors, there were many who died," she said.

Aling Nanette and the rest of the peasant villagers in Kamukhaan have been blaming Ladeco for hundreds of cases of death and skin- and respiratory-related ailments attributed to the widespread application of pesticides since the banana plantation expanded its operations 15 years ago.

"Before, the coconut trees bore a lot of fruits,” Aling Nanette recounted. “But when the spraying came, the plants started to die so they were cut down because they no longer bore fruits. Also, our farm animals, if we have chicken, when they apply MOCAP, NEMA (pesticides), if the chickens enter the area, they come out dead. That's why Ladeco should stop using these chemicals because they cause great damage."

Other community residents said that in 1997 a fish kill took place in the communal fish ponds located inside Kamukhaan Village. "Even before 1997, there were fish kills. They were poisoned by the harmful pesticides," Aling Nanette said.

In her opinion, Lapanday should stop using the chemicals and if possible, the land should be divided and given to the people. Otherwise, bigger disasters will set in, she says.

White spots

Edgar Rodriguez, 41, said he became ill since October last year after he inhaled sprinkled chemicals. On days that an airplane sprinkles chemicals on the Lapanday banana plantation, he experiences headaches and white spots grow on his skin, he said.

"I could not sleep at night and had difficulties in breathing most of the time," Mang Edgar said.

On the other hand, Michael Bakiran recalled his mother telling him that every time she passes by the plantation she inhaled chemicals. Bakiran said chemicals used by Lapanday had bad smell, like garlic. He now suspects that the cause of his mother's enlarged neck and stomach was Lapanday's pesticides and other chemicals used in banana farming.

Bakiran's mother died a tragic death. "She became very weak, she became thin. She was brought to the hospital and the findings were ’complicated.’ She was not able to go back to the hospital. After two weeks she died," he remembered.

The mission also found that most males showed signs and symptoms of anemia and possible blood dyscrasias, while a significant number of patients, both male and female exhibited signs and symptoms of tremors and palpitations suggestive of endocrine disruption.

The fact-finding team likewise noted many children showing developmental delays including stunting, wasting, delays in the development of secondary sexual characteristics and mental deficiencies.

Dr. Rodney Hernandez of the Institute for Occupational Health Safety and Development (IOHSAD) who led the medical component of the fact-finding mission said that all these strongly suggest that environmental pollutants made significant health impacts on the community.

"The case of Kamukhaan Village in Ladeco banana plantation is consistent with independent studies documenting health impacts from pesticide exposure," Dr. Fernandez said.

KMP's Ramos, on the other hand, said the Ladeco banana farm is untouchable in the province and widely known as “notorious” in spreading harmful and poisonous pesticides as he urged the Senate and House committees on agriculture to conduct an immediate inquiry on the issue.

”Aside from being untouched by any land reform, Secretary Lorenzo's family-owned banana plantation has been saturating farmers' land with pesticides and harmful chemicals that prevent them from growing their crops and pestering them with scores and various kinds of illness," the peasant leader said.

Subsidiary

Ladeco's subsidiary, the Global Fruits Corporation (GFC), is also the current subject of numerous complaints among residents in Tampakan, South Cotabato. The Social Action Center of Koronadal City is documenting cases of various complaints against GFC.

Minnie F. Lopez, KMP media information officer, told Bulatlat.com that religious groups, environmentalists and peasant organizations in South Cotabato have joined forces to stop GFC from pesticide-poisoning activities.

Lopez denounced GFC's and Ladeco's claims that reports charging both corporations of pesticide poisoning are fraudulent and mere media spin as he urged the Lorenzo family to submit themselves to a fair and square probe.

"The case of Kamukhaan Village will be linked to Ladeco's anarchic and irresponsible use of pesticides and other harmful chemicals that would soon explode into a wide-scale pesticide exposure," she said.

The fact finding team, likewise pressed Lorenzo to come out with an untampered list of Ladeco's pesticides and pesticide application processes in response to Ladeco's charges against the mission that their (fact-finding team) allegations against the banana plantation were “utterly without basis and only based on surmised conjectures."

"The people who participated in the fact-finding mission are professional doctors, experts in their respective fields, environmentalists and social scientists who are independent-minded, patriotic and with unquestionable integrity," KMP said. Bulatlat.com

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